Ohio Supreme Court will decide smoking ban

A statewide smoking ban in Ohio, which has been highly contentious from Day One, is headed to the Ohio Supreme Court. An appeal of lower court ruling upholding the law, was accepted by the Supreme Court. That means they will hear the case and make a ruling. No date has been set yet for a Supreme Court ruling.

A Supreme Court has yet to overturn a state smoking ban, though several other statewide bans have made it to their state’s Supreme Courts. A bar in Columbus that has been fined a total of $30,000 for ignoring the law is the plaintiff in the case.

However, this case could be moot. The governor, a Republican (natch) is proposing cutting 83 percent of the funding for the state’s smoking ban enforcement division within the Department of Health (Not sure why the county health departments don’t enforce it like most states.).

Some of the most strident opposition to smoking bans seems to come out of Ohio. While smoking bans in most states were implemented without much fuss or muss, it has remained heated among a minority of smokers there since the law went into effect in 2006 — FIVE YEARS AGO.

On Topix, the “Ohio approves smoking ban” thread is STILL ACTIVE after nearly five years and has generated more than 70,000 comments in five years. That’s about 40 comments a day, every day, for the past five years. Most threads only last 2 to 4 weeks then run out of gas. I think it’s the same 10 people congregating there every day to call each other names. Some of these threads get incredibly ugly.

One thought on “Ohio Supreme Court will decide smoking ban”

The reason there is still so much opposition is because we do not want it here. It is not a minority that opposes the ban, it is a majority. The reason it passed 5 years ago is because most people believed the law was to ignorant to pass and failed to go vote. Given a second chance, I’m sure that it would be shot down by a landslide.